The Last Champion: Book 4 of The Last War Series

by Peter Bostrom

  Chuck’s eyes flicked to one of the closed doors that, Mattis presumed, led to a private room. “Jack’s here.”

  Was he losing his mind? This must be what losing one’s mind felt like. Mattis felt his fists ball by his sides. “You brought a baby aboard a warship? You brought my grandson into a … into a…” he swept his hand around. “Into this disaster?”

  Chuck’s face clouded. “Hey, I wouldn’t have done it if I had a choice.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “Anyway, ignore that. Look. You’ve got to get Pitt down here—Jeremy Pitt, that is. And his dad, too. As many witnesses as you can get. We can prove he’s a clone here and now. And what that means? Well, that’s above my pay grade.”

  It seemed doubtful. Between the battle and swift evacuation, Mattis hadn’t had time to say more than a few dozen words to Jeremy Pitt. Hadn’t even had time to debrief him. And now Chuck was here out of the blue, along with his infant son—good Lord, what the hell was that all about?—it was a lot to take in at once.

  “Who’s he a clone of?” asked Mattis. It made no sense. “He looks just like how he used to.”

  “A clone of himself,” said Chuck. “Or, more accurately, of the real Jeremy Pitt.”

  It was a bitter pill to swallow. After losing Pitt and seeing him buried, Mattis had just gotten used to the idea that the man was back. To be told it was all a lie… “What kind of test?” asked Mattis, skeptical.

  “Well,” said Chuck, “Bratta was talking about it before. I can explain it to you if you like.”

  Bratta was here? Steve Bratta, the scientist? The galaxy was a small place. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll try to keep up.”

  “The thing is,” said Chuck, idly pacing around in a small circle. “You’d know as well as I do that clones have identical DNA. But… well, Bratta explained it to me like this. There’s a thing called mitochondria; organelles that sit inside nearly every cell. Their purpose is to convert food into something we can use.” Mitochondria. The powerhouse of the cell. Mattis remembered his science lessons. “The thing is, clones come out of a lab, and mitochondria possess their own chromosomal signature—their own DNA.

  “In normal humans, they get our mitochondria from our mothers. But the clones that Spectre was making—at least, I think this was what Bratta was getting at—the clones of himself, the Avenir mutants, everything… well, they all use the same mitochondrial source. So we can analyze the DNA and find out if it matches the ones from—” there was a brief, ever so slight pause. “The other living future-humans we know about. And…” a shadow passed over his son’s face. “And the mitochondria in Jack. Dad, they did something to him. They—they did something to him,” he repeated, fighting back what he guessed were tears of either despair or rage. But he composed himself. “Anyway, we can test them all, and compare the mitochondria. Jack’s, Pitt’s, the future-human mutant’s—”

  Mattis scowled a little bit, digesting that information. Chuck was obviously referring to the escape pod they’d retrieved. “Wait, how in hell did you know we have a future-human aboard?”

  Chuck’s surprise seemed totally genuine. “I didn’t,” he said. “I meant the one aboard the Aerostar.”

  Well, that was unexpected. They both just stood there awkwardly.

  “You’re telling me,” said Mattis, cautiously. “There’s another Avenir on that ship? The Aerostar? How did you find it?”

  “How did you find yours?”

  He frowned again. “You first, son.”

  “It… she came out of a box,” said Chuck, cautiously. “Reardon got paid to deliver a crate to New London, bound eventually for the USS Midway. The people who met him at the other end double-crossed him and thought to take it for themselves. That plan didn’t work out, Reardon eventually got curious and opened up the box. Revealing… yeah. The Avenir. And lots of explosives. He thinks the boxes were all destined for US military vessels, as remotely-triggered bombs or something.”

  Mattis cringed. He had no reason to doubt his son, but it was troubling news indeed. Someone was paying to ship living Avenir around in boxes? How many others had there been?

  The image of the USS Hamilton disappearing in a white burst of light, taking with it the crew, Captain Abramova, Commander Riley… Spectre had taunted Mattis right before the explosion, asking if they had been visited by Jovian Logistics.

  It all made sense now.

  Spectre had been shipping the boxes to US military assets. If it wasn’t for Reardon’s intercept—however that had happened—Mattis would have been blasted to atoms along with the Midway.

  “Right,” said Mattis, cautiously dragging his mind back to the present. “Thank God for Mr. Reardon. Never thought I’d say that out loud.”

  Chuck rubbed his hands together. “It’s actually really good that you have one, too. That gives us another source to compare to when we analyze Pitt’s DNA.”

  “Okay,” said Mattis, rolling his injured shoulder experimentally. It definitely felt hurt, but—maybe it was the painkiller, but it felt a bit better already. “What now?”

  “I guess,” said Chuck, “the first step is, we’ll need blood from the mutants. Bring all of the future-humans we have together, take some blood, and we see if we can find out the truth. And figure out what the hell is going on.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Sickbay

  USS Warrior

  Vellini, High Orbit

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  The Warrior was more intact than he’d feared at first. There were massive amounts of casualties, but the ship itself was serviceable and mobile, if not heavily damaged. But safe enough to use it as his flagship? Admiral Fischer lived, but would be in a hospital for several weeks.

  The American military was now in the command of Admiral Jack Mattis.

  For now.

  The process of getting three Avenir into the same spot had proven more difficult than Mattis had anticipated.

  Pitt’s quarantine cycle had not yet completed. Fortunately, with a bit of convincing, Captain Flint had him released early. But he was wary of releasing the Avenir they’d found in the pod in the Pinegar system—days of intense and brutal interrogation had yielded nothing. The thing had not said a single word. “We’ve only just softened it up,” bragged Flint, but Mattis, knowing the limitations of torture, just shook his head. In the end, Flint agreed to send it over under heavy guard.

  And Harry Reardon did not want to turn over someone he now considered his crewman to be “experimented” on. Fortunately, the combined words of Spears, Flint, and himself managed to sway him, although Mattis suspected that Chuck contributing made the difference.

  The box-Avenir was brought over first. A nervous looking creature, skittish almost, like a beaten cat. She took in the world with wide eyes and jumped at the slightest sound—something she did often in the still-crowded infirmary of the USS Warrior.

  Yet, with just a few soothing words from Chuck—less words, really, more the kind of gentle noises one might make to a pet or baby—the creature calmed down, seeming to take in its new surroundings with curiosity. His son called her Lily. Good Lord, he gave the thing a name.

  And yet, Mattis couldn’t help but be proud. There was some part of Chuck that he had always known was there—the role of the gentle hero, the protector, nurturer, savior. Only now had he really seen it in action. And it was a sight to behold. The difference between the box-Avenir—Lily—and his escape pod-Avenir was night and day. The pod-Avenir was beaten, scarred, bleeding, and stared straight ahead of itself with no apparent expression or emotion. Lily, on the other hand … was that a smile? Good Lord, it was smiling at Chuck, even if for just a moment.

  Steve Bratta arrived, hauling armfuls of machinery and electronics that looked like something he’d made himself in a garage—an uncased computer, wires and chips exposed, leading to three small elevated plates, each the size of a fist. The guy muttered a greeting, then started hooking up his various system
s straight into the infirmary power. Mattis cast a skeptical eye over the whole setup. If that getup blew out the power relays during a crisis…

  Best not to think about it.

  Senator Pitt arrived next, along with Martha. Mattis caught her eye with a sly wink. Was that a blush?

  Pitt dove right in. “You better have a good explanation for this, Mattis. I’m happy you’ve rescued him, but now your services are no longer required. I—”

  “Senator? With all due respect, shut the fuck up.” Mattis was tired of him. When was the next election? “I’ve asked you here because there are a few tests we need to make, and I want you here as a witness. So a representative of the government sees this and can testify at my inevitable senate inquiry.” He paused, wondering how much he should reveal at the moment. “And you may find you have a personal stake in what is going on.”

  That seemed to shut him up.

  Jeremy Pitt finally arrived, respectfully escorted by a lone Marine with a handgun.

  “Quite the operation you’ve got here,” said Pitt, smiling at him with a game smile that was just oh-so-Pitt. Could he really be a clone? The idea met resistance in Mattis’s mind. Couldn’t be… “The smoke and warning klaxons remind me of my last command.”

  Pitt’s smile seemed so genuine. So real. Mattis tried hard to return it. “I suppose.”

  “Is there anything you need me to do? Do I get to know why I’m here?”

  “Not yet,” said Mattis, tapping Bratta on the shoulder. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

  “Yup. On it.” Bratta’s fingers thumped at keys at a blinding pace. “There we go.” The guy took a long, deep breath, cracked his back, and then finally looked at Mattis. “Okay, Captain. I’m ready to run the test.”

  “I’m an Admiral,” he said, pointing his shoulder. “And… go for it.”

  Bratta picked up a needle. He walked over to Pitt, who rolled up his sleeve. Bratta stuck the needle against his skin. For some reason, Mattis almost expected it to bend, break, finding Pitt’s skin tough and impossible. But it went right in.

  “Here we go.” Bratta carefully extracted some blood from Pitt, then took another sample of blood out of the cooler. “You grandson’s,” he explained. He tipped it onto a plate, gently squirted some from the needle onto another, and then approached the Avenir from Reardon’s ship.

  “Ready?” asked Bratta. “It might sting a bit.”

  The creature hissed and withdrew. It looked like it might be about to tear Bratta’s arm off and beat him with it.

  “Here,” said Chuck, taking the needle. “Let me do it.”

  That seemed to meet with some approval. “Ye,” said the creature, rolling up her sleeve. “Ye. Protein bar.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Chuck, laughing as he slid the needle in. “Don’t worry, you’ll get another one. Just hold still for now.”

  “Ye,” said the creature.

  Bratta took the blood from Chuck, then put in on the third plate. He glanced up at the pod-Avenir with hesitation. “Think he’ll let me get a sample?”

  The thing stared straight ahead, unmoving, unblinking. Mattis nodded. “I don’t think you’ll meet any resistance from that one.”

  Tentatively, Bratta approached it and, inch by inch, moved the needle toward its green, muscular, bulbous arm. With one deft, quick motion, he jabbed the needle in and drew a sample, almost running backward when he finally withdrew the needle. He squirted a few drops of blood on a fourth glass plate, and inserted all of them into his home-made chamber.

  “Admiral, if you would do the honors…”

  “So,” said Mattis, sliding over to the machine. “What do I do?”

  “Just hit the Return key on the keyboard.”

  Mattis did so. The screen lit up; a bunch of symbols and letters and numbers flew across the screens, which ended in a sudden flash.

  MITOCHONDRIAL MATCH

  The words hit him like a hammer, eyes drifting to Commander Pitt. “Mr. Bratta. It seems all three of our guests here, and my grandson, all share the same mitochondria DNA. But … what can you tell me about Mr. Pitt?”

  Bratta nodded, knowing what he was asking. He turned to the senator. “Mr. Pitt? I’ll need a sample from you, too.”

  Senator Pitt looked as if he were about to protest, but a stern look from Mattis shut him up before he could speak. Swearing under his breath, he shoved his sleeve up and thrust it out towards Bratta, who took a quick blood sample and inserted it into the machine next to his son’s.

  He fiddled with the machine for a few moments, typing in a series of commands. “Just need to zero in on a few sequences here. Compare a few strands of the father’s to the son’s … the effects of replication would show up in the transcription pattern of the—” he fired off a series of genetic jargon that Mattis couldn’t piece together. But after a few minutes of work, muttering under his breath the whole time, Bratta finally pressed the return key again.

  GENE REPLICATION DETECTED

  CLONE PROBABILITY: 99.97%

  It was true. Pitt was a clone.

  Mattis turned to Senator Pitt, whose face had started to turn red. The man closed his eyes. “It’s … it’s true. After Jeremy died … I just … I just couldn’t bear it. I begged him … I begged Spectre to—”

  “You asked Spectre to clone your son? That madman? Do you realize who the hell you were dealing with?”

  Senator Pitt stuttered and blinked. “I … I … no. No, I didn’t. All I wanted was my son back. I couldn’t lose him.” He looked up at Mattis and stared him in the eye. “If it were your son, you’d do the same.” He glanced over at Chuck. “And your son. Look what lengths you’ve gone to. To save him. To keep him.”

  Mattis turned to Jeremy Pitt, whose face was white. His mouth hung slack. “We’re done here,” Mattis said to the Marine that had escorted Jeremy in. “Take both Avenir to the brig.”

  Chuck’s eyes widened. “Dad, no,” he said, looking between him and the Avenir mutants in turn. “I promised her she wouldn’t be harmed.”

  “And it won’t.” Mattis wanted to tell Chuck otherwise, but he knew Spears and Flint both would—and rightly so—have his head if he didn’t contain the creature. “It’s still an unstable element,” he said. “We can’t let it just roam around the ship. Or any other ship.”

  “But—”

  “No.” Mattis’s voice turned firm. “That’s it, son.” Then, to Commander Pitt himself, he grimaced slightly. “We have to have a little chat.”

  Pitt’s eyes were fixed on the monitor. On the words CLONE PROBABILITY: 99.97%.

  Pitt stammered something nobody could understand. It seemed difficult for him to believe. Understandable, really.

  “Jeremy,” said Mattis, gently. “This doesn’t mean—”

  “You know damn fucking well what it means,” spat Pitt, growling angrily and slamming his fist into the table.

  The whole thing splintered and broke, sending equipment and samples sprawling out onto the deck. Such a powerful blow seemed almost superhuman—something more akin to what the Avenir might be able to dish out, not a human being.

  Which raised even more questions.

  Pitt stared in horror and confusion at the mess, and then turned and stormed toward the door.

  The guard stepped in his way but, having just seen the display of Pitt’s raw power, Mattis waved him away. Jeremy Pitt, his path unobstructed, stormed out of the infirmary.

  “Seal off the deck,” commanded Mattis. “Get the Rhinos in here to flush him out. Don’t let regular Marines engage him, but don’t let him get away, either.”

  “Wait,” said Chuck, cautiously. “Dad, this man might well believe himself to be the real Jeremy Pitt. He seems to have all the man’s memories, sogo easy on him, you know? Maybe try talk to him?”

  Go easy on him? Mattis stared for a moment, but having seen Chuck’s influence with his Avenir, perhaps there was something to be said for his gentle attitude.

  “Wai
t here,” said Mattis, in a tone that booked no argument. He glanced at Senator Pitt. “And you. Working with a sworn enemy of the US government? Even for you son’s sake? Do you know how many lives were lost because of Spectre?” And before the other man could reply, Mattis left the infirmary, following the sound of Pitt’s running footsteps.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Patricia “Guano” Corrick’s J-88

  Vellini, Atmosphere

  Vellini System

  Tiberius Sector

  Guano’s J-88 descended into the atmosphere, roughly following the trajectory Roadie’s doomed bird had taken. Soon their ship was engulfed in flames, yellow-orange angry tongues of fire licking the sides of her cockpit.

  “So, uh,” said Flatline, his tone slightly high-pitched, as though he were talking to keep his nerves in check. “Have you ever heard that song? All Along The Watchtower. Do you think that song could be about us?”

  Guano stared at her console, monitoring her angle of attacks so they didn’t burn up. “How could a song that’s hundreds of years old be about us?”

  “Well,” said Flatline, “we could be the two riders. You know.”

  Guano tapped a couple of keys, adjusting their course slightly, dipping their nose. “You’re a rider. I’m a driver. It doesn’t work. It’s stupid.”

  “Okay,” said Flatline, dejectedly.

  In a few moments, the flames died down and they were flying in the upper atmosphere of Vellini. Her computer helpfully displayed the location of Roadie and Frost’s transponders, painting them on her HUD as green boxes. There were heavy winds and storms in the area they had ejected into; landing in a computer-stabalized strike craft was one thing, but to do so in a parachute with limited control…

  “Jeez,” said Flatline, obviously looking at the same data. “Roadie’s pucker factor must be like 9.7 right now.”